Where do they come from and why do they pick me?

Stunned would be a good word. Yep. I think it's the best one to describe my reaction. I was at a meeting on Sunday morning. I go to this meeting most every week. Except when I miss it because of an A.A. Area Service meeting. Well, the woman who took me to my first meeting about 22 years ago was there. It always gladdens my heart to see her. So, I sat with her and we chatted. She says to me. *You're quite the topic of converstain at meetings.* Huh? What do you mean? Well, it would seem that there is some guy (I don't know him nor did I recognize his name or that of his sponsor) who refuses to hold hands at meetings now because I am wiccan. Hmm. I NEVER say that I am wiccan. When asked, I say I am a witch or a Pagan. Anyway, he believes that I will suck out his soul while holding hands DURING THE LORD'S PRAYER AND GIVE IT TO THE DEVIL!! Wow! I had no idea I held such power. Why am I always the last to know? First of all, I feel sorta sorry for the poor christian whose god is so weak that he can't protect his followers even during a prayer directed at him. *Our Father Who art in heaven... I'm sorry, Father's out just now. Can you come back later?* Cause Reclaiming Feri isn't the only path I know. Words hold power for christians too. And names. I am pretty sure that I was told my soul was safe with Yahweh's name on my lips, in my heart, whatever. I'm pretty sure I was told that my soul was always safe. Right up to the time when I became the definition of a blasphemer.

At first I was stunned, appalled, scared. What did this mean? For me? For the sobriety of this guy? Well, his sobriety is out of my hands. For me? It could mean many things. It could mean that I do ont go to the meeting where he supposedly met me which I occaisionally go to. It could mean that I go there are regularly as possible just to piss him off and steal his soul. Which would be mean and the brainchild of an undealt with resentment. This will probably not happen. Although I may still go to this meeting on occaision. But for the near future I will be going to a women's meeting in the East End instead of this meeting in the West End. I am the GSR for a meeting in the East End and our district meeting is on Monday nights just before the women's meeting. And, I have been going to this meeting for over a month and have NOT been going to the meeting wherein all the hubbub has been brewing. Guess that's why I didn't know anything about it. Either that or no one wants to piss off the witch. The woman who took me to my first meeting? She has more sense than that. Plus, she's not a gossip. Otherwise I would have heard this witha grain of salt. Oh, and it seems that I have run afoul of a couple at the West End meeting by objecting to the way they handle their sponsees. Isolating them and controling their every move. It would seem that I was out of line when I gave one of their sponsees my honest opinion and it contradicted what they had said. Said sponsee wanted to adopt a rescue dog that she had been working with at the local shelter for months. I said I did not see why getting a dog would cause her to get drunk. Apparently her sponsor and her sponsor's girlfriend thought the only cats can help you stay sober. And despite my best efforts to be cheerful and pleasant neither one of them will talk to me to this day. And it has been months. Could their resentments have lead to them spreading really stupid shit like people's souls aitn't safe? It's possible. One of them screamed at me at a meeting and the other one screamed at the poor woman who wanted a dog. Out of control, totally unacceptable. The sad part is that we were all friends at one time.
Which means that I DO have some insight into how their minds work. And they are devious.

But, all that aside, for the time being I will go to a different meeting. I really don't feel any need to mess with the mind (or soul) of someone who is so obviously afraid and who does not have a higher power they can actually trust as yet.
It rankles though. I kept going to this meeting throughout many bits and bobs of chaos with the bullheaded idea that no one was going to push me out of a meeting. Well, I still feel that way but if spiritually weak newcomers are going to be impacted, this changes the situation considerably. If I had no options as to other meetings I would confront the whole group. In a group, or bring it up as a topic or go to the group officers and ask for a group conscience to try to work it out. But, even though many of the people in this group are friends of mine, I don't think that would get me too far at present. They are having problems functioning as a group anyway. And obviously they are having trouble with Traditions 1 and 5.
1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon A.A. unity.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose--to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
It would get too convoluted for me to go into all their problems but when confronted with many people leaving that group and getting new home groups because of how they have been treated or because of behaviours they have witnessed in this group (me among them) the group GSR made some flip comment and refused to see the problem as important.
I got waaay off track but ya can see why I am not so stunned that meanness and intolerance came out of this meeting as I am that it happened at all.

I don't know what, if anything, I will do about this. For now I am breathing and sitting with it. Oh, and praying for the poor sod whose god can't protect him.